Wille Faler’s Buzzword Bingo

The Register reports that Barclays Capital is cutting the pay of their contractors by 10% over the board, those who do not accept the pay cuts will be allowed to work out their notice period.

I can sympathize with Barclay Capitals wish to slash 10% of contractor costs, but the way they are going about it is rather inept: they will annoy and alienate just about every contractor they use, which will hardly do wonders for morale, productivity and retention of high value individuals.
The fact is, some contractors may be grossly underpaid compared to the value they bring as it is, whereas others may be grossly overpaid or even surplus requirements. Why not try to identify the overpaid or surplus requirements contractors instead of using such a blunt instrument to cut cost?

..but then again, doing shrewd business moves can sometimes be hard work, and given the predicament that necessitated this move in the first place, shrewd business moves are probably not very high up on their agenda..

(Point of note: I do not contract for Barclays Capital, nor have I ever been affiliated with them in any shape or form).

.well, maybe not quite, and I definitely hope I’m not that destructive.
But there is just something to the beginning of a contract.. I find the first few weeks of a contract by far the most enjoyable: there is a certain rush to beginning something new, having to hit the ground running, pick up the understanding of a whole new business environment, where its technology stands and what you are expected to do about it.
It is usually a time when I live for work: I get up extra early in the morning to get to the office, and I stay late enough to only have time for dinner and a quick run in the evening before it is time for what little beauty sleep I can get.
Maybe what makes it so special is that there is nothing routine about it, you have a fresh perspective and fresh ideas, you’re not one of the “incumbents” stuck in old ways or consensus thinking.

Personally I think that a good contractor should provide the most value to an organization within the first 60 working days, after that there tends to be a diminishing return to the extra money an external consultant costs, you start to become “just” an extra pair of hands (albeit hopefully a skilled pair of hands..).

Well, after looking (harder) for about a month, I’ve finally been offered an acceptable contract. It took some time, due to the market generally being slow in July and August (holiday season in the UK), and also because I have tended to restrict my search to “higher end” contracts. So, from Wednesday on I will start a new role as a Java Team Lead, which should keep me busy the better part of what’s left of the year.

But, having looked for some time (and done it many times before), my nose is starting to develop a very good “bullshit” sensor when it comes to recruitment agencies. There are many good agencies out there, but unfortunately, they also have many competitors that range from the innocuously incompetent to the outright fraudulent. Here are a few things the less honourable agencies will try on when you are looking for a contract:

• “What is the lowest rate you would accept?”: Answering this question directly and honestly is a great way of screwing yourself. Once you have given them a figure you can bet that it will be used as a base for the highest rate you will ever get out of that agency (out of the budget given by their client, they get whatever figure you don’t). A better approach is to avoid answering directly and asking them what their ballpark budget is.
• “What other companies have you been put forward to? We don’t want to hurt your chances by putting you forward somewhere you have already been put forward”: This is a fishing expedition for new business leads, by getting to know other companies that are looking for people like you. Do not for a second believe that the agency would hesitate in calling the client and offering more candidates that are not you. Avoid answering this question at any cost, even if it means bluntly saying that you wont answer it.
• “Can you give me any references from your past work? Don’t you have any more senior references?”: Very relevant if you’ve already had an interview or you know who the client is and you have been told that they want to interview you. But, if you do not have anything tangible you can be sure it is a fishing expedition for leads to people who have been known to hire contractors. Unless you know an agent really well and know them to be honest, never-ever give out references without having been given something tangible yourself (as mentioned above). It is better to miss out on a few opportunities (which is highly unlikely) than rewarding scumbags trying to con leads out of you.
• Advertisement with a vague/broad role and location: Some agents get commissions for the number of CV’s they retain. This means that from time to time they will put out ads for roles that simply do not exist. These roles are usually extremely vague or broad (looking for several types of roles even), and very vague on the location of the project. Typical CV farming.
• The last-minute change in terms as you are about to sign: It is not uncommon at all that terms discussed while negotiating a contract all of a sudden are not what they where agreed once the contract is presented for your signature. Agencies trying to pull a “switcharoo” in hope of you not reading the fine-print is common, unfortunately.

When it comes to the lead fishing, one very definite hint that they are fishing and do not have an actual role is if an agent calls you and is more interested in your references or where else you have been put forward, than he is in telling you about the role or who the actual client is.
Personally, I’ve been subjected to all of the above mentioned points at one time or another (and fallen for them when my skin wasn’t as thick). The fact that agencies try these things on with young kids trying to get their first contracts isn’t too surprising, but personally I find it mind-boggling when they try it on with someone who has done contracting for over five years.
I usually try to be firm, but non-confrontational (without giving in) as far as possible, but these days, in particular when it comes to shameless fishing expeditions I just tell them to buzz off if they are too pushy (and I also put them on my little “black list” of agencies I will never again deal with).

Apparently, there is a new site around, with the purpose of letting candidates and employers rate employment agencies. About time! I was thinking about doing such a thing myself, but now that there is one around, I’d rather see that it gets some support behind it so that data becomes comprehensive.

The wildly varying quality of recruitment agencies in the UK is a big problem: some of them are rather good, a lot of them are incompetent and a few are outright scam-artists. The professionalism and level of ethics in the industry is questionable at best. The only way so far to know who to deal with and who to avoid has really been to deal with everyone, get burnt a few times and put down the names of the bad ones in your personal little notebook.

A site like HireScores should help give the industry some transparency, reward the good agencies by driving business and candidates towards them, and hopefully drive the incompetents and scammers out of the industry.

As someone who has previously praised the contractor lifestyle, the title to this post might be surprising, but there are good reasons for my thoughts on perhaps going permanent. First and foremost, I am somewhat disillusioned by the contracts available to me outside of the financial sector. Essentially the London contract market is two-tiered: If you want to do hands-on development, most organizations will treat you like a code-monkey unable to make autonomous decisions, and rarely pay you more than £400 a day (might sound a lot to non-brits, but it doesn’t go far with London living-costs..). At the other end of the market, you might get treated a bit better, and make up towards £600 a day, the catch? You’ll have to become a “PowerPoint-architect”, spending more time doing pastelly diagrams and playing politics than writing code.
(Note: these are of course gross generalizations, but probably apply to 60%+ of organizations).

Now, I don’t want to be a PowerPoint-architect, I want to get my hands dirty writing code, while still having the authority and trust to have a strong influence on important technical decisions, as well as understanding the business side of those decisions. And I want to be paid well, at least in the long term (short term loss for long term gain is always acceptable).

In that perspective, there is little other choice that makes sense than to pursue a permanent career with one of the major investment banks. The investment banks are really the organizations in the London area that attract the cream of the crop when it comes to technical talent: they only hire the best, the techies are a valued and trusted part of the business, and the best ones have ample opportunity to progress, learn the business and make good money. It would seem to me like the kind of places that are more likely to attract people passionate about their profession, rather than the timecard punching variety who do not want to hear or learn anything outside of their 9-5 routine.

At the moment I am strongly considering it and looking at my options, it would seem now would be the time to go permanent if ever (I’ll be 30 in less than a year).
We’ll see what I think once I have finished looking at my options, I might still end up contracting.. After all, with nothing else certain, it would be pretty hard turning down an interesting high paying contract if it materialized out of the blue: A sure contract with sure money is a better deal than “having your CV looked at” by someone else..

One thing that has puzzled me for some time, is the fact that roles such as “Websphere Administrator” often (not all of the time) pay more than bread-and-butter developer roles in the contract market. I can’t really see a reason, especially since from Websphere AS 5 and on, there really isn’t that much to administer..

Is it simply because no one wants to do it? I know for a fact that I’d rather try my hand at self-vasectomy than spend 18 months in a corner administering Websphere instances and nothing else..

Back from holiday now, so posts will hopefully be more frequent now.

My return will also spell the end of my official holiday, and I will subsequently slowly start looking for my next contract and/or freelance work. I am not strapped for cash in any way, so when it comes to contracts I am not eager to jump on the first thing that comes along (unless it is really good), but I am open for suggestions.
So for anyone who may be looking for people to take onto projects, or people to take on projects, here is what I can do, and what I want to do:

My skills and background

• 8 plus years of professional software development experience in commercial environments, several years in (hands-on) architectural and team lead roles.
• Primary background is within Java and J2EE technologies, which I know like the back of my hand, although reasonably comfortable with similar OO stuff, like C#.
• My strongest selling point is my strong background in integration, middleware and messaging type projects - I not only know when, where and how to apply JMS/MQ/Brokers etc etc, I’ve also been involved in actually writing integration middleware software.
• Strong knowledge of “Core Java” stuff like threading/concurrency, network I/O development and JVM behaviour on different platforms.
• Strong business acumen - having tried my hand at entrepreneurship before, I see myself as more than “just” a technologist.

What I can do/want to do

• Longer term full-time contract work (the regular 3-9 month stuff) within an existing project.
• Full ownership of smaller, well-defined projects/pieces of work at a fixed price (open to projects that can be done “remotely”, and I can probably also pool highly skilled resources from my personal network to scale beyond “one person” if there is a need).
• Preferred types of roles: “hands-on” roles involving at least 40-50% “coding” (typically with titles such as “architect”, “team lead”, “technical lead” or “senior developer”).
• Preferred type of environment: Agile environments strongly preferred although not required as long as there is some pragmatism within the organisation (as in where the emphasis is on “getting things done”, rather than “ticking made-up boxes on a form”). Entirely document-driven paper-tiger type waterfall projects where progress is mostly imaginary are of no interest.
• Private sector organization - I have been somewhat put off from Government projects from the few examples I have seen myself, there is a hint as to why in the previous bullet-point.

What I can offer
No-nonsense effective delivery of technically complex solutions solving real business needs. I do what I say, and say what I do: I don’t sugarcoat problems, I do what I can to solve them. I am positive, enthusiastic and result-driven, I genuinely love technology, software development and the challenges the area poses, so you’ll get more for your money than someone who is merely interested in “9-5″.

If you have anything that you want to discuss, feel free to e-mail me at wille.faler (a t) gmail (dot) com

Anecdotal evidence would suggest that the London IT contracting market is currently alive and kicking: I am not yet looking for contracts actively (nor have I been looking actively since 2005), and the summer months are usually a slow period. Despite that, I have had no less than 6 recruiters call me in the last 1.5 days since I came back from my travels (I had my phone turned off during my time away).
Nor are recruiters balking at the rate I am asking for (it has happened before).

In other words, activity seems quite high, even though it should be a slow period..

If people leave me a voicemail, I will almost without fault call them back, even if I know it is of no benefit to me. However there is one way that will guarantee me not calling back when leaving me voicemail, especially if I don’t personally know someone: mumbling your name in an unintelligible way and saying your phone number so quickly it seems like you’re in a hurry for me not to be able to write it down.

I just got a voicemail that went something like this:
“Hi, this is *mumblemumble* from [agency], I’d like to discuss a contract role with you, could you call me back at [12 digits said so quickly I had to listen 4 times to get it down]“.
I’m just sorry, I don’t have dog-hearing so I’m able to hear on other frequencies than ordinary men, nor am I a Hollywood action-hero who is able to get down any number or location however quickly mentioned on the first try (I’m also unable to tell what “12 degrees south southwest” is without a compass, but that goes without saying..).

This time, I actually did bother to take down the number and check the agency’s site, it is their main line. Sorry, not going to call an office with 50 people in it and ask “Do you have a guy there whose name is ‘mumblemumble’, I think it might start with an A?”.

I got an e-mail today from someone thinking about going into contracting long-term, which I thought might be interesting to bring up:

I recently started working as an independent contractor and I enjoy working on different projects with different organizations. I am worried that if I jump around too much employers may be reluctant to hire me. I checked out your linkedin profile and saw that most of your contracts were short in length and I’m wondering if you have concerns that you’re jumping around too much also?

The answer is: no.
But to digress a bit I think one has to look into the motivations of contracting: Being a contractor, one tends to get exposed to a lot of different projects, organizations and problems. If you are good at what you do, this exposure will supercharge your learning, and you will be able to draw on previous experience and knowledge in new situations. Who do you think learns the most: the person who is in the same project for five years, or the person who sees 6-9 projects in the same time? Most likely the latter. And not only that, he probably also learns how to hit the ground running and become effective in a project very quickly.

..and this is something that companies recognize: they know contractors come with deep experience and expertise, and as a result they are prepared to pay well, both for the expertise and the flexibility of having a contractor instead of a permanent employee. Furthermore, part of the selling point of a contractor can be that he comes in, solves a specific problem in a given timeframe, and then leaves, there is nothing strange in that.

However, this is a double-edged sword: once you have established yourself as a contractor you will have no trouble finding new contracts, and if you are good you’ll move up the food chain until you no longer have to search actively for contracts.
But at the same time, you may not be the first person companies will look to when employing permanent employees: considering your past, they will wonder if lesser pay, lesser variety in your tasks, and less flexibility will really appeal to you in the long term.
This is the reason one should look at the motivations of contracting: is it because you like the lifestyle (flexibility, choice, learning, pay), or is it just a temporary fix because you found a contract before you found a job? If it is the latter, you really shouldn’t get into contracting.

For me personally I love contracting as a lifestyle: I get to choose the projects and the general geographic area I want to work (within reason), I get paid more, I learn more and quicker than as a permie, and there is no long-term commitment: you are on a contract for 3-6 months at a time to do a specific job, neither you or your client has any expectations beyond that period, if you like it and want to, there may be an extension, but if you don’t like it there is an end in sight, you just have to be professional and sweat it out until the end of your contract.

And as I am doing right now: you can take as much time of to do your own things in between contracts as you like (and can afford).

What is there not to like?